Agreed. There should be no FICA-deduction line on a McDonald’s paycheck.
I think the only way to end this is for Obama to be the adult and cave a little, allowing Boehner to save face and giving up some things. I think as long as Obama doesn’t give anything on Obamacare, he wins in this. I can totally see the Tea Party House members, if it were left up to them, holding out and letting the debt limit hit as they don’t seem to care (and they don’t believe that hitting the limit and going over is even a problem).
It’s the tactic that’s illegitimate, not the demands- if Obama caves on anything, then the tactic will be used again. That’s unacceptable, so he can’t give anything.
Oh, I agree. However, someone is going to have to give before the debt limit is reached and if it’s Obama, even just a little bit, it will at least make him look like a grown-up.
I don’t think it will be Obama… there have been lots of indications that Boehner would allow a debt limit extension vote- even if just for 6 weeks or so, before we get to that.
He already looks like a grown up. Grown ups don’t give in to toddlers having temper tantrums. Awful parents give in to toddlers having temper tantrums. And then those toddlers grow up to be assholes. Unfortunately for us its too late for the assholes in congress. Their parents blew that one a long time ago. If only Ted Cruz’ parents didn’t give in to his tantrums as a child, maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now.
Meh. Cruz, Sr., is a rabid right-wing preacher who thinks Obama is a Muslim, so Ted would have come by it naturally anyway.
What I don’t fully understand is why the President and the Democrats allowed the Pay Our Military Act to be passed while they were saying no piecemeal legislation. I’m not upset about it since it allowed me to get back to work and get paid for it, but I’m not understanding it either.
Just taking away an opening for the traditional “Democrat communists don’t support the military!” shit, that’s all.
I recall reading once that a Roman emperor advised his son,“Whatever you do, please the soldiers!”
For those who have not benefited from the link to Sam Wang’s latest it is really very good and worth the read.
No one, including Nate Silver, crunches numbers more rigorously. (I do believe Sam is a better cruncher but not a better narrative writer.) His analysis places the odds of a House flip having changed from 13% to near 50% as a result of this shut down shit (my expletive, not his.)
Yes lots can change, perhaps more than in most years (hence the past predictive value over 6 House election cycles of polls now to results in November '14 may not hold) … But who knows in which direction? Yes, GOP approval and disapproval may regress to the mean. Alternatively these numbers and this level of disgust may drive DNC fundraising and support in key districts and motivate some more competitive individuals on the Democratic side to step up to the plate as challengers. Unrelated to flipping the House, some hardline TPers may find themselves primaried from the center right with some Big Business support of that challenge. Obama may become more unpopular and pull Democrats down with him. Or as the bugs work out of the computer system the public may find that Obamacare works well, saves them money and improves care, he may have some foreign policy accomplishments to crow about, and have a rise in popularity that pulls a wave.
Oh the odds are still against a flip and that near 50/50 chance is likely to regress some as this episode fades from mind some. But I’d a bet with modest odds now that I would not have taken before.
Personally, I think it would be better if the Republicans suffered modest losses in the House and Senate (especially among Tea Party members) than a wholesale bloodbath. It never seems to be a good thing when one party rules all and the pendulum seems to end up swinging to the other party. The Republicans need to lose for awhile to get them to shape up.
No, it is not at all true that America needs each party to correct the other’s excesses. It would be true, if our two-party system were the Democrats v. the Socialists.
Considering that the same clowns will be in the house, I see them continuing to vote to defund and obstruct everything, I see a good chance for the odds for this episode to be remembered in many forms; not as disruptive as now, but the house Republicans will not be able to stop themselves into voting for more extreme bills and declarations.
If Wang knows what he’s doing (and I believe that he does), that 50% chance is already including the expected regression to the mean. If the vote were to be taken right now, the chances would be a lot higher than 50%.
Just recognize that only 3 of those swingable districts are TP held (FL 10, MI 7, and MI11). The rest are more traditional pragmatic conservatives who indeed voted along with this and have kept their mouths shut but who are in the minds of TPers the enemy as much Democrats are. If the House does not flip but comes close the result will likely be a House MORE controlled by the TP minority (but more clearly the majority of majority in the House) than before.
Those 3 MUST lose and Big Business should be now well motivated to primary safe Republican districts with TP representation from the center right with pragmatic traditional conservatives.
Upon what do you base this assertion?
For one thing, the public in recent years has reacted VERY negatively to one-party rule. At least in terms of the Democrats’ track record, it would actually be good, politically, for the Democrats to win unified control in 2014, if it would mean a third straight ass-kicking two years later(1994 and 2010).
The last time Democrats controlled the whole government and didn’t get booted in only two years was 1978. And even there they lost 15 seats in the House and 3 in the Senate. The last time the Democrats didn’t lose big after controlling Congress and the White House for two years was the 1964 Johnson landslide. And THAT mistake was quickly corrected in 1966 when the GOP won 44 seats, followed by Nixon’s victory.
At least in terms of the pure politics, the LAST thing Democrats should want in 2014 is the House.
N.B.: “Reacting negatively to the party in power” != “reacting negatively to one-party rule as such.” “Should the House, Senate, and Presidency be controlled by one party or by different parties?” is a question appearing on no ballot.
Fair point. But the outcome is still the same, unless we assume a wise party that knows how to not piss off the public, something neither party has been able to do in recent decades.
I think the biggest reason is that voters want benefits from the government, but don’t want to pay taxes. Since this is impossible to achieve, both parties will end up enraging voters, either because they raise taxes, cut benefits, or just run up huge deficits.